Rentalapp: Serving tourists in Rome

Magadesign

Magadesign is an Italy-based agency with an array of clients including those in tourism, publishing, and insurance. When Magadesign discovered that a large number of people were accessing a client’s site on a mobile device, they wanted to develop an app to compliment the existing business strategy.

Building with Corona Enterprise, Magadesign was able to provide customers with a more enjoyable and appealing viewing experience. Read on to learn more about Magadesign’s experience building Rentalapp with Corona Enterprise.

Please share the background of Magadesign.

Founded in 2011, Magadesign is a young company that’s made up of graphic designers, artists, developers and SEO experts. From the start, we worked to create small websites. Later, we began to use various scripting languages like ASP, PHP and ASP.NET, in addition to integrating applications with relational databases (Access, MySQL and SQL Server).

What sorts of clients do you work with?

We primarily focus on the world of tourism, especially with respect to vacation rentals. This makes up the largest part of our client base. We also work with several publishing houses, a sailing magazine, an influential insurance broker in Italy, an international real estate company in Rome, and many more.

Can you share a brief overview of Rentalapp, your latest app built with Corona Enterprise?

We started building Rentalapp in August 2012 and it took us a few months to create. We began by studying the programming language Lua, which was unfamiliar to us at the time. We were interested in making an application that was easy to use, but that allowed people to book an apartment in Rome and pay by credit card in just a few steps.

The app was recently recognized with an award in the Tourism and Citizen Services category at SMAU, a popular trade show in Italy.

Why did you decide to upgrade to Corona Enterprise?

We upgraded because Corona Enterprise offered integration with other programming languages such as Objective-C and Java. In particular, we wanted to integrate PayPal libraries that were developed in Objective-C.

What was your experience developing with Corona Enterprise?

At the time, we had very little experience in app development. Though learning a new scripting language was challenging at first, our graphic designers were ultimately very impressed by the speed of development when using Corona Enterprise.

How has Rentalapp helped your client promote their brand and connect with customers?

Rentalapp was specifically designed for a Rome-based client called Rental in Rome. We decided to create the app when we discovered that a large portion of the client’s web visitors used a mobile device to surf the site. The app allowed us to create a more enjoyable, seamless experience for those interested in rental properties in Rome, which translated to more sales.

Do you recommend Corona Enterprise to other agencies?

Yes, we definitely recommend Corona Enterprise to others. We see Corona as a platform that can provide opportunities to design beautiful, animated business apps in addition to interesting games.